The Affliction
by amber-the-vamp
Summary: When Sherlock Holmes was a child he met the most fantastic man in the universe, only to watch him disappear into his blue box, never to be seen again. Twenty years later, and he's still not quite recovered from his experience.


So I'm back! I'm sorry it's been so long since I uploaded any new fics- I wrote this literally forever ago, forgot about it and then rediscovered it the other day. This time, a Sherlock and Doctor Who crossover :D I hope you enjoy.

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The Affliction

"I'll be back, Sherlock, just wait for me a moment."

The small boy looked up at the man's face, scratched and dirty like his own, and nodded. The man smiled a silly, crooked grin like he'd done several times that night, and moved his had away from the boy's shoulder as he stood up. He gave him one last smile before turning away and walking back into his impossible blue box.

The child watched the wooden contraption flicker and fade before disappearing entirely, leaving him standing alone in the garden of the manor house he lived in. He sat down on the grass, waiting for the man to return, just as he had said he would.

~O~

It had been twenty years since that night, and Sherlock Holmes was beginning to think things were getting out of hand.

He'd been through a lifetime of therapy, doctor's visits and mental tests. He'd laid on so many sofas and talked about him so many times as a child, he'd memorised his story entirely and would spew the same account each time, to each strange, new man he had the misfortune to be sent to.

The boy had become obsessed with the idea of travellers of time and space, of alien races and other planets with life forms living on them. It had seemed fine with his parents at first when, as a boy, he had wanted telescopes and constellation maps for presents as opposed to bikes and footballs. After all, those were the kind of things small boys liked, and wasn't it good that he had a hobby?

But things had quickly become too much. He had spent all of his time researching aliens and UFOs, and had become obsessed with a man he only referred to as "The Doctor". He had given up on his schoolwork and spending time with his family, and spent his time locked in his room consulting his books, morning until night.

Eventually, his family had decided enough was enough. He had gone too far-what had once been entertainment had turned to obsession. They barely saw their son; he never left his bedroom whilst they were awake, preferring to confine himself to within those four walls, a shadow slinking around, hovering over his charts and books. He rarely ate by choice, or went out for air. It was as if he wasn't even there. And so, one day, after forcing him to go to school, Sherlock's father had ransacked his room and left it devoid of anything to do with space, time travel or doctors.

Sherlock remembered that day. He had returned from school, where he had spent the whole day doodling little men in bow ties over his workbooks, to the smell of the burning. He had rushed into their walled garden to find his father standing in front of a huge bonfire, fuelled by the remnants of his telescope, his astronomy books, even his drawings of that strange man, the ones he'd kept hidden away. Sherlock stared as the angry flames licked at his belongings, devoured everything he'd ever cared about, watched as they were reduced to dry ash, smoke and charred metal. He was betrayed, broken, crushed, like all of his hopes of seeing the man again had gone up in smoke, along with all his material possessions.

After that, though, it all had become a bit of a blur; he could only remember snatches of what had a violent, murderous almost, emotional breakdown. He had thrown things around, torn things up, and he vaguely remembered smashing a window. But most of all, he had screamed; he had screamed and screamed, so loudly and angrily that one of the people down in the village nearby had actually called the police, fearing the worst.

He had, whilst being held back by his older brother, tried to attack his father, and he and shouted every filthy word he knew, every curse he could come up with, tears streaming down his face, his throat sore, as his parents stood there, stony-faced and unfeeling, and told him that it was "for the best".

Sherlock realised that he actually remembered a lot more than he had thought about that day.

After that (and several more hospital visits later), Sherlock had eventually calmed down. He'd lain off the astronomy and time travel stuff, and had settled down at school, studying hard in science, history and various languages. He didn't, however, forget the Doctor.

Even if he couldn't, or more accurately, didn't, want to continue his research on the strange man he had met all those years ago for fear of becoming obsessed once again, he still didn't lose his fascination with doctors. No, he liked to think that he'd simply toned it down, and had made it less obvious to the people who knew what he'd been like when he was younger.

And that was where Sherlock had decided enough was enough. He hadn't calmed down at all- he'd simply changed tactics. In the last ten years, Sherlock had dated around twenty-seven different people (he'd lost count recently, but it couldn't have been more than twenty in total), as well as umpteen sexual encounters. Every single one of them had been a doctor. It didn't matter to him what area they were focussed in, or their age, or even their gender, if there were two little letters before their name on the envelopes in the post, Sherlock would have them. He would take them, make love to them, keep them for a while, and drop them once they got boring. Some lasted longer than others - some barely lasted the night. It was how he got his fun.

He knew, however, that he couldn't keep going like that. He couldn't keep hanging around hospitals claiming he was visiting his sick mother in the hope of picking up a cardiac specialist or two. He would eventually get to the point where there would be no more medics to keep away the boredom, and the ones in his memories were already blurring together, names fading away. He'd already moved location twice in the hope of finding new faces, new excitement, and he couldn't afford to keep the habit up. And so, because of this, it was around nine months ago that Sherlock had decided to put an end to all of it. He'd just ended a relationship with a mediocre blonde who taught architecture at some university or the other. Sherlock hadn't even cared, really- she was called "Doctor", that was enough for him, and once he'd tired of her, he'd dumped her with one of his usual "it's not you, it's me" lines, despite it being an untruth. It was her that was the problem- she wasn't the doctor he wanted her to be, and no one ever could be.

And so, that was the end of it, Sherlock decided. No more doctors. No more useless partners. Hell, how about no more people in general. He would sit inside, pumped up with cocaine and nicotine, never eating or sleeping, and he would think. Married to his work, he would think for a living, solving his crimes as he normally did and shooting holes in his walls. It would be that way he would live, and that way he would die. What he hadn't anticipated, however, was the arrival of a certain John Watson into his life. _Doctor_ John Watson.

It was that day at St. Bart's where Mike Stamford had wandered in, army doctor in tow, that Sherlock had thought, no, not this time. He was clearly a doctor, this "John", with his comments and gait and aura of familiarity, and a good one at that, and Sherlock would not allow himself to touch him. The soldier's obvious strength posed an excellent challenge to him, and one side of the detective knew that he was perfect, entertainment that would last months and something not to be missed, whereas the other side knew he'd break the man, as perfect as he was, he'd snap him in half in no time, and then he'd be off again looking for another piece of human entertainment, and he would never be able to forgive himself. No, as fantastic as this man seemed, he was just a doctor. It was _the_ Doctor that Sherlock was looking for, and this man just wasn't him, sad though it may seem. No, he would leave him be and stick to his promise, somehow.

Unfortunately, not everything always goes to plan.

By the end of the next day John had moved in, and Sherlock had to remind himself every day that there was nothing going on, he was simply there to help pay the rent. And it worked, most of the time. But when Sherlock came home from a chase, bloodied and bruised and pumped up with adrenaline, it was John's job to fix him up again. And each time acted as a painful reminder that John _was_ a doctor, just not the one he needed.

~O~

Sherlock Holmes sat up straight from where he had been leaning his head in his hands, thinking. He heard something like a noise he'd heard many years ago outside, and cocked his head to one side, frowning. _Had it been…_ Sherlock would not allow himself to finish the thought. Of course it hadn't.

But some parts of his mind would not be stilled so easily, the detective realised. Some parts still wouldn't believe, wouldn't be reassured as simply as other parts would, and he barely registered his legs moving before he was by the window, peeking out from around the curtains. Had it been?

It hadn't. It never was. Baker Street was the same as ever; monotonous cars and buses and people, people everywhere, all with the same faces, the same jobs, the same useless meanings to their pointless little lives, not worth his time to dig deeper into. Nonetheless, he still tried.

He saw everything: a woman with a string of lovers; an off-duty policeman with growing debts, who was becoming more distressed by the day; a club singer secretly dealing drugs after closing time; a doctor coming to collect the child he'd left behind.

Sherlock growled, shaking his head and covering his eyes with his hands. It only took the sound of an aeroplane outside, or a particularly noisy car driving past to be misheard as something else, and then his entire mind would spill off on a tangent paved with tweed jackets and bow ties. He looked out into the road again, at the people and their boring, miserable little lives. Everything was so _hateful_.

He heard footsteps on the stairs, John's. He'd gone out to get milk about twenty minutes ago, and he was home right on cue, right on time for the detective to start moaning and lying around, to block out all of the little words swimming around his head and start shooting at the walls. He was glad he'd kept John, even if he was just a friend. He gave him something to think about other than the blue boxes flying about his past and the madmen that occupied them. Perhaps John would have a new case for him; maybe he'd seen Lestrade in the street, or had heard snatches of a rumour of a murder in Charing Cross, or maybe today's headline had been particularly engaging, something, _anything_ to give Sherlock something to set his mind on, _anything_ but the Doctor. Sherlock kept staring out into the street, not bothering to analyse the taps coming up the steps as closely as he should have.

He only realised something was wrong when the owner of the footsteps was inside the flat. He didn't know something was wrong, he just felt it, a moment of sudden understanding where the atmosphere changed, the tension shifted, and everything just became entirely different, as if by magic.

But Sherlock Holmes didn't believe in magic. He did, however, believe in science.

Slowly, the detective turned around, unsure of what he would find standing in front of him, of who they would be. He moved his eyes upwards to meet the gaze of his trespasser, and then he was falling, his back slamming against the cold glass, hands scrambling for purchase on the window frame, panting, shaking, gasping, unable to comprehend what stood before him.

The footsteps hadn't been John's; of course they hadn't. They had been too soft, too timid, too old and knowledgeable and unsure of what would happen once they were heard. They were footsteps that had walked a million floors and seen a million paths, and they were _not_ those of an army doctor's.

Sherlock pushed himself upright, shaking and struggling to stand, and stared. He stared at the well-worn boots, the striped shirt, the messy hair, the tweed jacket and the eyes. Those impossibly old, wise, _sad_ eyes, staring right back into his.

"Hello, Sherlock," Said the Doctor. "I'm back."

THE END

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So this was a bitch to name XD I like to think of this as "What happened to Amy Pond, only with Sherlock instead." I hope I did a good job. A big thank you to everyone who favourite and reviewed my last story- you're the reason this is up here! I promise they'll be new stories soon. Until then, please leave a review, I hope you enjoyed my fic! x


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